The present invention relates generally to computer and welding systems, and more particularly to a system and method providing local and/or remote technical information transfers to welders via a weld object that provides links to the most recent welding operating, training, troubleshooting and servicing information, wherein users may determine/select replacement components from the information and automatically initiate orders associated with a replacement part selection.
Welding systems reside at the core of the modern industrial age. From massive automobile assembly operations to automated manufacturing environments, these systems facilitate joining in ever more complicated manufacturing operations. One such example of a welding system includes an electric arc welding system. This may involve movement of a consumable electrode, for example, toward a work piece while current is passed through the electrode and across an arc developed between the electrode and the work piece. The electrode may be a non-consumable or consumable type, wherein portions of the electrode may be melted and deposited on the work piece. Often, hundreds or perhaps thousands of welders are employed to drive multiple aspects of an assembly process, wherein sophisticated controllers enable individual welders to operate within relevant portions of the process. For example, some of these aspects relate to control of power and waveforms supplied to the electrode, movements or travel of a welding tip during welding, electrode travel to other welding points, gas control to protect a molten weld pool from oxidation at elevated temperatures and provide ionized plasma for an arc, and other aspects such as arc stability to control the quality of the weld. These systems are often deployed over great distances in larger manufacturing environments and many times are spread across multiple manufacturing centers. Given the nature and requirements of modem and more complex manufacturing operations however, welding systems designers, architects and suppliers face increasing challenges in regard to upgrading, maintaining, controlling, servicing and supplying various welding locations. Unfortunately, many conventional welding systems operate in individually controlled and somewhat isolated manufacturing locations in regard to the overall joining, fabrication and/or other production process. Thus, controlling, maintaining, servicing and supplying multiple and isolated locations in large centers, and/or across the globe, has become more challenging, time consuming and expensive.
One such challenge relates to providing relevant and/or current technical information to welding system operators. This information can be in a variety of forms such as service manuals, training and operating manuals, troubleshooting manuals, schematics, and/or any information relating to operating and servicing the welding system. The information is often stored in document or manual form and generally remains unchanged after initial shipment and installment of the welding system. If a problem occurs with the welder, or if routine maintenance is to be performed, and/or if a new/current operator needs more specific information to perform new or different welding tasks, this information generally has to be retrieved manually by the operator from a file cabinet or other filing location that may not even be located on the production floor. Valuable time is then generally expended searching for the necessary documents. The time expended may include searching through documents of unrelated welding systems that service other portions of the production process. Even after a manual or document location is found, there is substantially no assurance that the retrieved document provides the latest or most recent information for a particular welding system. For example, the welding system may have undergone several upgrades (e.g., application software enhancements, welding program changes, weld controller firmware changes, hardware component changes) before an operator needs to perform a service procedure such as troubleshoot and replace a faulty welding component. If an older manual is retrieved that does not reflect the current state of the welding system, however, faulty diagnosis may occur. Consequently, this may lead to expensive troubleshooting costs and other costs relating to purchasing incorrect components that may not in fact be defective. Thus, extra welding system downtime may occur because of incorrect diagnosis and selection of non-defective replacement parts.
Once a component has been determined for replacement by a weld system operator or technician, another costly and time-consuming procedure generally follows. This involves ordering and purchasing the suspected defective component or part. The operator generally has to look-up the part in a manual, find the related part number, determine who supplies the part, and look the part up in a supplier""s catalog. When the supplier has been determined, a phone call or FAX is placed to determine availability and price information, and then a purchase order is generated and transmitted to the supplier to fulfill the order. Assuming that the part has been entered correctly by the purchaser and processed correctly by the supplier, the part may then arrive at the welder wherein a replacement can then occur. Unfortunately, the above process involves many time-consuming and manual steps-sometimes involving error. Thus, much time can be expended receiving inadequate or incorrect replacement parts. If many welders are serviced by many different operators in this manner, as is often the case in larger welding environments, these problems become magnified.
Due to the problems described above and other problems associated with conventional welding systems, there is an unsolved need for an improved welding architecture to facilitate remote information transfers and parts distribution to multiple welding systems that may be distributed across large areas or regions.
The following presents a simplified summary of the invention in order to provide a basic understanding of sonic aspects of the present invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is intended to neither identify key or critical elements of the invention nor delineate the scope of the invention. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.
The present invention relates to a system and method to provide an automated transfer of relevant and up-to-date information relating to welding systems and to enable automatic replacement part or weld program order generation from the information. This is achieved without requiring an operator to perform exhaustive searches for the information and/or to manually perform conventional steps relating to replacement component purchases and acquisitions. An operator may retrieve and utilize the information via a network architecture/interface to operate and maintain the welding system, for example, wherein the information may be associated with troubleshooting, servicing, maintaining, and operating the welding system. Upon obtaining the relevant information, the operator or user may learn new or current operating procedures and/or determine replacement components indicated by the retrieved information for components that are defective and/or need replacement in the routine course of maintaining the welding system. Additionally, the user can automatically order new welder programs or procedures that control the welding system and process. An automated order generation system then enables the operator to initiate replacement component and/or welder program/procedure purchases based on selections provided in the retrieved information. In this manner, the operator can retrieve information associated with the welding system without having to perform searches or physically locate a particular item that may or may not contain the most recent welding system information. If a component or program needs replacement, a component/program purchase can automatically be triggered by selecting the desired component or program within the retrieved information. Thus, errors associated with outdated documentation and manually driven purchasing systems are mitigated.
In accordance with the present invention, a welding information broker is employed to determine the current state of the welding system. The broker solicits individual welding components over an internal welding system bus with the current state of one or more of the components that contribute to the architecture of a particular welding system. This may also include receiving version information relating to the availability of the information residing in the welding system. The welding information broker is then linked to a remote network server with an object list or table of all documentation relating to the particular welding system as defined by the weld broker. A local data store is examined according to the list to determine if the documentation is up to date and available locally at the welding system. An interface such as a browser may then be utilized to view the documentation from the local data store. If the documentation is not available locally, a download may be automatically initiated to transfer the most recent documentation to the local data store. Alternatively, the documentation may be examined by the weld system operator or user at the remote location. In such a case, a document pointer may be stored to point to the remote location.
In the course of utilizing the documentation, the welding system operator may learn new welding procedures, perform routine maintenance, and/or troubleshoot the welding system via schematic documentation, for example. If a part or component is determined for replacement, and/or if a new welder program/procedure is desired, the welding system operator may initiate a purchase of the part or program by selecting (e.g., mouse click) the part within the documentation. This is achieved by linking the welding broker to a remote inventory and distribution system and updating the broker with purchasing information relating to the welding system, the selected part and associated part suppliers. Based on the purchasing information associated with the welding system, a purchase order may be automatically generated and transmitted to the supplier, wherein the order may then be automatically fulfilled without utilizing conventional manual ordering processes (e.g., typing orders, phoning suppliers, looking up parts in catalogs). Automated ordering of welder programs or procedures may be similarly initiated.
The following description and the annexed drawings set forth in detail certain illustrative aspects of the invention. These aspects are indicative, however, of but a few of the various ways in which the principles of the invention may be employed and the present invention is intended to include all such aspects and their equivalents. Other advantages and novel features of the invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the drawings.